


All That is Left

by osmalic



Category: Wicked - Gregory Maguire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-16
Updated: 2006-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-21 04:50:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/221112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osmalic/pseuds/osmalic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Melena has a guest who asks the strangest questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That is Left

"If there is anything you want in the whole world," the woman begins, as if relating a story, "would you tell it to me?"

Melena has to laugh. "It would take me years to think of an answer," she says, teasing. She has not had companion for days now and she wishes she can always talk. "Would it be something that is readily given, like a material thing? Or can it be simply anything, anything at all?"

"Well," replies the woman, who sits on the wicker chair as if it is her home she is in, "you would have to tell me first and I would tell you if it can be given."

"Fair," Melena responds, grinning. She is sitting on the opposite chair although she wishes she is sitting by the woman’s feet. It is warmer there, even with the rug threadbare. Instead, she sighs and lets her fingers trail over the stretched skin of her swollen belly, which she unashamedly exposes to the other woman. _Let her stare, let her scorn,_ Melena thinks, _for without me she would have no supper._ She laughs gaily. "I would probably wish for my husband home and safe."

"There are spells for calling." The woman draws out a large book from her side. "And there are spells for safety, but could there also be spell for distance?"

"Ah, magic," Melena sighs although she cranes her neck for a view of the book that her guest opens on her lap. "If only we all are sorceress."

"Or sorcerers," the woman rejoins. "But we are not, so we read."

"There is nothing magical about books," Melena retorts, but the sharpness of her voice is mostly brought about by sharp presses on her abdomen. "None that cannot be surpassed by human life."

Here, the woman gives her another appraisal, but she shrugs and turns another page. Melena sees odd markings on the paper and for one moment she thinks she reads her name: _Melena Thropp._ Yet she blinks again and they are all lines.

"So it is for your husband’s safety," says the woman, nodding. "What of your own? What of your child?"

"Any child of mine," the proud mother-to-be declares, "has no need for magic protection."

"Ah, you learn to speak with your husband’s tongue," the woman teases right back and Melena laughs again. "Would you use magic on your husband’s safety instead?"

This makes Melena think for she knows Frex does not approve of magic, does not even approve of warlocks and witchcraft. Her guest—the woman whose name she did not catch and she is too embarrassed to ask for again—does not seem to know how to read the book, if it _does_ contain witchcraft. Or grants wishes.

Wishes are for children!

Suddenly, Melena finds herself very tired. She looks out the window where the sun is setting and tries to remember a time when there is no Clock of the Time Dragon, nor this bloated belly attempting to burst from her, nor of Frex with his passionate tirade against sins, nor of breakfast and lunch dishes waiting to be washed. Where has her Nanny gone? Where are those times of tea in the garden, of pretty dresses, of kissing boys in the garden? Oh, for childhood, she sighs again. Oh, for dreams.

"I wish," she murmurs, "for magic to give my child everything that I have turned my back on."

She turns to see the woman (Yackal—is that her name? How curious.) look at her with sympathy and some curiosity. "I suppose it was hard to turn away from all that you knew for love," the woman offers kindly, and she suddenly seems old.

Melena thinks, perhaps, it is _she_ who is older. "It was harder," she sighs, "when I turned them away for freedom."

**Author's Note:**

> So let's pretend Yackle got to touch the Grimmerie for a few months.


End file.
